From the bestselling author of High Maintenance comes a witty, heartfelt comic novel about marriage, motherhood, and discovering that the life you have is exactly the one you want.
Isolde Brilliant used to have a life she recognized. She was working in finance, she had a devoted, if neurotic, husband, and a perfectly acceptable apartment in downtown Manhattan. But once Izzy's wish to become a mother finally comes true, she is laid off from her job, and her old world falls by the wayside. Although she's surprised with motherhood's hidden pleasures-jaunts to the park, bickering with other mothers, and the sense of accomplishment she feels in having made it through her son's first year-her marriage is on shaky ground and she feels lost. She just can't quite get a grip on what to do now that she has all-or most-of the things she's ever wanted.
As Izzy ponders her next move, her best friend announces that she is leaving her husband. Balancing the demands of marriage and motherhood for seven years has made her feel like a nag, a shrew, a...you-know-what, and she's determined that the only way out is too leave. Izzy tries to avoid a similar fate, but as new challenges and temptations arise for her, she begins to wonder if there might be some inescapable grain of truth in her friend's outlandish theory.
Full of the poignancy and hilarity that readers have come to expect from Jennifer Belle, The Seven Year Bitch is a smart and provocative novel about learning how to love what you have, and finding out that it's both the hardest thing you've ever done and not so hard after all.
Since she was thirteen, one of the few things New York novelist Rebekah Kettle has been able to count on is the thrill of seeing a new movie by world-renowned filmmaker Arthur Weeman every fall. Now thirty-three, the humor and poignancy of Weeman's singular movies have inextricably merged with her own memories'to the point that she has begun writing him letters under the guise of her thirteen-year-old self'and her teenage admiration has become fullblown obsession. So when Rebekah steps back and takes stock of her own life, she isn't happy with what she finds: She's unlucky in love, hopelessly stalled in her work, and unable to get over the past.
It's time for Rebekah to take action. She starts a relationship with Isaac Myman, a quirky paparazzo with whom she's suspiciously compatible. And she befriends Mrs. Williams, an eccentric older woman who needs her companionship. It seems things are looking up. But, just as unexpectedly, Rebekah discovers that Mrs. Williams's apartment has the most coveted view on the Upper East Side'straight into Arthur Weeman's town house'where she can watch the object of her obsession's life displayed like a silent movie. Weeman has always been a fixture on the rumor mill, but Rebekah has been his staunchest defender'until she sees the evidence for herself and has to ask herself some questions. Does she give her new love a chance at the scoop of a lifetime'a photo of the compromised Weeman'or does she remain loyal to the man whose films have defined her life?
Riotously funny and astonishingly moving, Little Stalker is a bold, daring, twisted, and lovable novel that could have come only from a literary voice as sharp and original as Jennifer Belle's.
